A roadside bomb killed five policeman Friday as they traveled in a convoy transporting four bodies believed to be Macedonian workers kidnapped in southern Afghanistan a week ago, a senior official said.

Police found the bodies late Thursday in a mountainous region in the Maywand district of Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold, said Kandahar province Gov. Asadullah Khalid. The four Macedonian employees of a German firm were purportedly abducted by Taliban militants.

Khalid said the roadside bomb struck one vehicle in the police convoy as it was returning the bodies to Kandahar late Friday, killing five officers and wounding three. Other vehicles in the convoy continued on to Kandahar and the bodies were later transported to Kabul.

Khalid said Afghan authorities had launched a hunt for the workers’ remains after the Taliban claimed it had shot them and abandoned their bodies near a main road in Maywand district.